Monday, May 31, 2010

Since Genyornis's extinction date has been traced to 40,000/50,000 years ago the painting probably dates to around that period, which would make in Australia's oldest known example of cave art. Since the beast's numbers declined very quickly after humans arrived in Australia, the most popular explanation for their demise is that they were hunted to death. Here's another picture:

About the same height as an ostrich, but twice as heavy, so about 500 to 700lbs.

Meanwhile, if you want to know what the news will be 24 to 48 hours from now re the Great Gulf Oil Spill of 2010, read The Oil Drum(also good for Peak Oil stuff and material on how the energy sector and the environment interact, usually to the detriment of the latter). Seriously, "Top-Kill" failed on Thursday; the lamestream reported that on Saturday, even when BP was already readying LMRP on Friday. Mind you, they're mostly oil industry and engineering types writing and commenting over there, and they do nothing to dispel the stereotype of engineer as arrogant dick.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Note: Some specualtion as to whether what we're seeing here is the result of the robot camera backing away and panning up, with the debris falling from the camera itself. Possible, but towards the end of the vid you see the debris moving fairly decisively towards and past the camera lens (a bit like a tv space-ship moving through an asteroid field), which suggests its being propelled from the leak.

PS. The best explanation of why this may not be an explosion/rupture is here. And, oh, by the way, BP's 2nd attempt to plug the well has officially failed.

Their robot camera is looking studiously in another direction at the moment, but at about 9:10 AM the live feed was showing what looked like a cloud of flying stones. From the industry experts at The Oil Drum:

Its time to throw some cold water on talk of an NDP/Liberal Coalition. Lets start with blogger Dan Arnold, expanding on pollster Frank Graves' claim that an NDP/LPoC merger would not be "perfectly efficient"--that is, not all NDP or LPoC supporters would migrate over to the new political entity:

Another point: negotiating a merger would be a long, fraught process. A race for the new party's leadership would be required, and a convention, and etc. etc. Lots of money, lots of of time, and no reason for Harper not to drop the writ at an inconvenient moment. If you worry about preventing a CPoC majority more than you worry about the fact that after a mere four years on the outside, some Liberals are jonesing uncontrollably for a return to power, then this is a mess to be avoided. Remember, the Reform/Progressive Conservatives occurred in the shadow of a majority government; they had plenty of time to get their act together. Our new entity would not have this luxury.

Crafting an NDP/LPoC working arrangement should our next election give these parties the largest block of seats in the HOC would be something I could get behind. But why worry about it now? People talk about the recent partnering between the U.K.'s Cameron and Clegg; remember, however--this did not become a viable option until several weeks into that particular election campaign. None of the major U.K. parties were willing to assume and prepare for their own defeat in advance.

Finally, lets assume (and its a pretty good assumption given the current state of the polls) that our next parliament looks pretty much like this one. That is, a Tory minority, probably with a few less seats than they currently hold. What happens then?

Well, most likely Stephen Harper retires. Jack Layton too; he's been NDP head for a long time, and the party's support with him in that position has most likely peaked. He has also been fighting cancer. Most intriguingly, there have been rumors that, should Elizabeth May not win a seat in the House (and she won't, given that her opponent is Garry Lunn), she will step down as Green Party Leader. That leaves Michael Ignatieff as the last person standing (assuming Liberals don't panic and dump him, or he doesn't quit and retreat into academe) and the other parties in some turmoil. Green voters would be especially ripe for plucking because, lets face it, after Lizzy May they're back to a gang of aging hippies raising money by selling dream-catchers and holding salmon bakes.

In short, for the Liberal Party of Canada, patience may bring opportunity. Panic inevitably precedes a rout.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

BP is moving along to "Junkshots" and other more desperate measures. They're saying this at The Oil Drum, and NYT has picked it up here. If its true, and junkshot fails (very likely at this point) then every couple of days = one Exxon Valdez, for the next 90 days, until they drill a relief well, if they get the relief well right the first time.

They're talking about deliberately torching the Louisiana Coastline to burn off oil that's washed ashore. Can't find the link right now, but they are.

On the question of Interplay, the news is rather bad for bloggers out there hoping to crash the news cycle:

...social media tend to home in on stories that get much less attention in the mainstream press. And there is little evidence, at least at this point, of the traditional press then picking up on those stories in response. Across the entire year studied, just one particular story or event – the controversy over emails relating to global research that came to be known as “Climate-gate” – became a major item in the blogosphere and then, a week later, gaining more traction in traditional media.

Well, the article only considers one mechanism by which a blog story might get "picked up" in the MSM: there is a frenzy of activity over an issue in the blogosphere--a "blog burst", to use the lingo; MSM reporters look around and see a bunch of outraged or faux outraged bloggers all writing on the same topic, and they think: "Hmm! If it interests them, it must be interesting to a broader population!"

I think more often, though, a story might appear on a single blog, or a small group of blogs, and then be seized upon by an MSM outlet not for its raw prominence, but because whatever reporter stumbled over the piece thought it had intrinsic news interest. Since the resultant MSM piece would not typically acknowledge the earlier one or two blog postings, a connection between the two realms would not be noticed by the Pew Research project's methodology.

Two, Actually: recent Harper Senate Appointees Nancy Greene Rain (I think that's how she's concatenated her name) and Don Plett, musing about how an elected Senate might not be such a good thing, with Mr. Plett throwing in an additional aside suggesting he's against Senate term-limits.

This last bit is, of course, absolute heresy. Plett is a Harper appointee, and as Stockwell Day wrote back in September:

As the Globe piece notes, CIDA's advice was to fund safe abortion services in countries where abortion was legal. That should put paid to the nonsense folks like Father Raymond J. de Souza have been spouting:

Of all the ideas floating around re the various policies for a suitable G-8 Maternal Health Initiative, absolutely none involves forcing a country where abortion is currently illegal to provide abortions. And, you know, I read people like Andrew Coyne grousing about how we can't even have a debate in Canada these days over the issue. Well, there's been one on-going for the last couple of months, and if you want to know why the pro-life side has basically got its ass kicked (see here for how polls on the topic have changed), you can point to folks like Mr. De Souza and the kind of ridiculous arguments they've been making. I mean seriously. The guy's a priest; he's not allowed to bullshit, whether its in Jesus' name or otherwise.

And note how this painting runs the whole gamut of Group of 7 concerns, featuring rocks, a tree, ANDsnow. Artist Tom Thomson must have really been stoked, as he went ahead with it even after running out of red and green pigment, which he probably blew on this painting.

Heffel Fine Art Auction House is hoping that Landscape fetches +$1,000,000 at auction, but I think the lack of reds and greens will mean they get docked a few bucks.

In the last day or so, there has been much ink spilled in the U.S. media over one Rand Paul. Son of Ron Paul, Rand is now GOP candidate for the state of Kentucky's open Senate seat in the upcoming mid-term elections, having ousted the "establishment" candidate in this week's Republican Primaries. On the very heels of his victory, however, Mr. Paul suddenly found himself on the wrong end of some tough questions about whether private businesses should be allowed to discriminate against blacks.

Hey presto, he went from a rising star within the "tea party" movement, and therefore within the GOP, to a ball & chain in less than 48 hours.

Now, presumably, the MSM will go looking for other unexploded bombs in the GOP's "tea party" insurgency.

Which brings us to Arthur Robinson, winner of the Republican Congressional Nomination in Oregon District 4. Arthur Robinson is a climate change skeptic. In fact, he is one of the people behind The Oregon Petition , a petition opposing the Kyoto Protocol and similar efforts to mitigate climate change. I've written about Mr. Robinson, his petition, and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which Mr. Robinson founded back in 1980, here.

As part of his work at the Institute, Mr. Robinson has, since 1993, served as editor of the Access To Energy newsletter. Happily, the institute has archived this publication back to 1973. Lets troll through some of the back issues, and see what we find, shall we?

Given the recent BP spill off Louisiana, I thought it would be interesting to learn Mr. Robinson's views on off-shore drilling. These were not hard to discover:

This is just a sample from Mr. Robinson's extensive writings on the Oregon Institute website and elsewhere. I've barely touched on his AGW skepticism, or the many, many articles he's written on Hormesis (which is the the idea that a little bit of radiation is actually good for you).

Hopefully, though, it is enough to give a taste of the man's philosophy

We're getting close, in other words, and despite all the debate Harper's plan-to-have-a plan has generated, it remains in fact a nothing-burger. And it isn't out of the question that what will be eventually revealed to the G-8 will be so minimal as to extend little beyond the initial press release. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that wasn't the final result: a press conference and we're outta there and the whole episode is forgotten.

Most of the Harper gov's tough on crime agenda is so trivial that it's difficult to oppose. Whatever you might think of the legal principles at stake, who really cares if Clifford Robert Oslen loses his pension? As long a nobody is under the impression that any psychopaths out there are going to stop eating nuns because they might lose their CP benefits, why not let such legislation pass? The number of people it would effect is in the low dozens. It just isn't worth a fight.

Or at least, as I understand it, that has been the logic of the LPoC (Liberal Party of Canada) brain trust for the past year or so.

Bill S-10--previously known as C-15--is different, however: mandatory jail-time for small scale drug offenses like growing a half dozen marijuana plants is not only bad law, its ambitious enough to do real harm to society. Just from a regional perspective, such a law would entirely denude British Columbia's Salt Spring and other Gulf Islands of their colonies of retired hippies.

As for the Conservatives, at the party level this, like much of their anti-crime legislation, is driven by pure cynicism: the need to shovel boob-bait to the bubbas in their political base. The grass-roots support, though, is a little harder to explain. It isn't as though there aren't a ton of potheads among Tory supporters. In fact, back in the day, its the young conservatives that would buy absolutely any bag full of dirt you wanted to sell them. You could cut the hashish with vaseline twice and they'd still come back for more; you could string them along for weeks by telling them that yes it was supposed to smell like Oregano, that the two plants were actually related in the biological sense.

But then they'd get high and do a little reading and the weed would serve as a gateway drug to Ayn Rand. I found I couldn't live with myself when that happened.

In any case, I am firmly in the "legalize and tax it" camp when it comes to fighting the drug wars. But if the Harper government really wanted to get tough without getting crazy, they could look at some of the changes made to C-15 when it reached the upper house first time around. Surely between 6 and 200 plants (the Senate figure) there is a number that would make life more difficult on dealers but wouldn't send Grandma Wiccan from Hornby Island to prison.

And this: Bill C-232, an NDP-sponsored private Members bill, makes it through the HOC and to the Senate where several Conservative Senators seem ready to break ranks and allow the measure to pass. So does Bill C-311, although far too late to do any good, and I suspect that one will die in the upper house, but whatever...

Is something changing in Ottawa? Are we finally, through some combination of exhaustion in the PMO and the Tory's slow slide in the polls, getting the kind of minority government we should have got four years ago?

The African Canadian Legal Clinic (ACLC) has applied for intervenor status in the judicial review of Warman v. Lemire. The full text of their written representations are here. Not too many surprises: they want to keep S.13, as it is "an invaluable and necessary tool in the legal system's anti-Black hate toolkit", albeit with "substantive and procedural modifications". It sounds like they want to remove S.54.1,the penalty provision, but also add a few clauses here and there: Paragraph 44 in particular is sure to make a Speechy scream.

It is interesting, too, to read the ACLC's account of their need to make a case apart from the CHRC:

Finally, the representation refers a number of times to an affidavit by ACLC head Margaret Parsons. That can be found here.

So let’s have a closer look at the accuracy of the interpretation at Supreme Court hearings. I argued a case last month in the Supreme Court. When I said, in French, “The Gosset case affirmed the principle of full compensation of the injury”, the interpreter translated “Gosset says that there has to be comprehensive damage”. When I wanted to contrast the civil law and the common law, which adopt different positions on the compensation of grief, I said, in French, that “at common law grief is not compensable”. The interpreter omitted to translate “at common law”, making it sound as if the statement related to the civil law, thus inserting a contradiction in the English version of my argument. Other examples of errors are the translation of “droit commun” (which means general law) by “common law” (a totally different concept), saying that one’s rights were not breached without specifying that I was talking about “Charter rights”, which makes my argument incomprehensible, or saying that the second paragraph of article 1610 of the Civil Code was not applicable when I said that it was.Overall, the interpretation was good, but inconsistencies, incomplete statements and, indeed, errors such as these necessarily affect the force and the logic of the oral arguments presented. A legal argument is like a chain: if one piece breaks, the whole thing falls apart. Legal language is highly technical and cannot suffer from imprecision.Yet, I was lucky, as all the members of my seven-judge bench understood French and did not rely on the interpretation provided. Michel Doucet, who argued Charlebois v. St. John (City) in 2005 before a full bench that included Justice Major, was not so lucky. He was shocked when he listened to the English version of his argument on CPAC. The interpreter distorted the meaning of several sentences, omitted a reference to a section of the Charter, and totally omitted to translate a sentence.Lawyers who appear before the Supreme Court finely hone their arguments and rehearse several times. Each sentence is carefully crafted, especially as time is short. It is not too much to ask that judges understand all the subtlety and the nuance of what is being said, in the language in which it is said.By the way, if C-232 is considered "well-intentioned", and most people seem to feel that it is, why not ask to Senate to slap a delayed implementation date on it--say 8 years down the road (undergrad degree plus 4 years law school)--so that the current crop of unilinguals get a chance to serve but the next generation of lawyers with SC ambitions can train up to the level required?

Monday, May 17, 2010

RealClearPolitics maintains a poll of polls for such things as the POTUS' approval ratings, Congressional job approval and, above, the Generic Congressional Vote. Bottom-line: for the first time in 2010 the Dems are ahead. Albeit slightly, and albeit generic congressional polls tend to underestimate (it is said) GOP support. But a far better result than Republicans up 3.2%, which was the story a month ago. I'd guess on this basis that the GOP makes gains in both houses this November, but manages to capture control of neither.

Several Liberal bloggers have been bashing Liberal Party Prez Alfred Apps for expressing sympathy towards Helena Guergis after weeks of the party's calling for her resignation. So, lets do a poll, shall we:I've sort of been swinging back and forth between the two alternatives, my logic for answer number 2 being that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and voters are too uninterested to work through all the flip-floppery necessary to spot the hypocrisy.

I would point out that NDP MP Pat Martin has also managed to turn on a dime on this issue and is now protesting the poor lady's maltreatment. So there is much hypocrisy to go around.

And may the "A-word" be uttered daily on the floor of the HOC. Because why? Because this.

PS. I'd laugh nervously if I'd said something this ridiculous too. Harper did not act quickly over the serial screw-ups of Ms. Guergis. He tried to pull a Chretien--that is, hang on to his errant minister until a quiet moment when the press wasn't looking, and dump her then. But I've seen Jean Chretien on TV and, Mr. Harper, you are no Jean Chretien.

Friday, May 14, 2010

AGW Denialists like Anthony Watts are always complaining about how the Urban Heat Island Effect screws up measurements from weather stations located near airports by injecting non-climatic sources of warming into their temperature records. For example here. Now the lads from Clear Climate Code, who have been attempting to reproduce software used by climate scientists in a more user-friendly programming language, have found a means of comparing airport to non-airport sites so as to see whether or not the concerns of people like Mr. Watts are justified. Their answer?

Wycliffe Bible Translators slurped up a hefty $495,600 of your money and mine.And CC has found the paperwork:And, put succinctly, Wycliffe Bible Translators are missionaries--I mean, they refer to themselves as missionaries in one or two places on their website. They're translating bibles to bring more people into the church. Here's Barbara Trudell, one of their translators, discussing how, in the African context, beginning a child's education in their mother tongue produces more readers of The Gospel (bolding is mine):

Thursday, May 13, 2010

...as marijuana activists stormed his constituency office , protesting the extradition of "Prince Of Pot" Marc Emery. I think her name is "Nicole". If so, I am mildly attracted. If, on the other hand, it is Marc Emery himself, then he may have trouble in prison.

Firstly, I should say that I haven't yet read Marci McDonald's The Armageddon Factor, but I have read the original Walrus article upon which it is based, and I've followed many of smartest writers on the intersection of Pulpit and Politics that Canada possesses. Furthermore, over the course of the years I myself have written frequently and extensively on many of the same people that appear in the pages of Ms. McDonald's book.

So, that said, when it comes to her main contention: that the Christian Right is "on the rise" in Canada, I have to conclude with Mr. Brian Lilley. It isn't, really:

Yes, Charles McVety gets an inordinate amount of face-time with the current Prime Minister; and yes it is infuriating that whether or not the Toronto Pride celebration gets federal funding depends on bible-waving hill-folk like Saskatoon—Humboldt MP Bradley Trost. But Mr. Lilley is correct in noting that the quality of the Christian Right's "victories" has been very poor, consisting largely of private members' bills that failed or were never voted upon, and tiny sums shaved here and there from organizations that will survive the cuts, and whose funding can be restored at the stroke of a pen when Harper and his gang are finally sent packing.

But here's the point: abortion will still get funded--it will still be one of items contained within the framework. In fact, you could probably argue that Canada will still fund it, at least indirectly, as who can say where a dollar originally placed within pot labelled "micro-nutrients" will finally wind up? The "victory" here is merely the construction of an elaborate artifice to cover over these two facts, to make the government's capitulation to the G-8 majority a little less obvious to its supporters within the Christian Right , or at least easier for them to swallow.

And that's the kind of victory you get in lieu of something more substantial that your "Christian Friendly" government is politically unable to give you. It is surely not a sign of increasing influence; if anything, it is a sign of the sharp constraints placed upon this government's ability to please its TheoCon supporters.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Noted by a reader, and found at the Merx: Canadian Public Tenders, which offers to hook up companies looking to do business with the Federal Government, with the Federal Government. It looks like the Harper Tories wanted to launch a pro-seal hunt Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter campaign ($50,001 - $100,000's worth) this year.

Since the RFP was closed in January 2010, and the seal hunt--or what passed for a hunt this year--ended in April, it would be interesting to scroll through YouTube et al and try and figure out what vids and etc. were part of the government's astroturf campaign.

While the Toronto Pride Parade has lost funding, Lethbridge's Whoop-Up Dayshas been green lighted to receive federal monies this year. Thus fuelling accusations of homophobia on the part of the Harper Tories. But how non-gay, really, is Whoop-Up Days? Here's a few images from Whoop-Ups past that I at least find very...suggestive. Handsome young men. Nice facial hair. And the two on the right seem quite affectionate. Raises questions, definitely.

Also, men in skirts:

Say...no...more.

And there's cowboys involved. And when there's cowboys involved, well...

And, holy fuck: Shriners! They've got Shriners.

They had tons of Shriners in Sodom and Gomorrah!

So I'm doubting whether the Tories are against the Pride March as such: it seems to me they just want to relocate it to Alberta.

Monday, May 10, 2010

This has been talked about for ages now, but finally details have emerged. First Gulf is these guys. The Sun staff has all been jammed onto a single floor, but one bit of good news is that they've finally been granted access to an extra set of bathrooms. Wait times have been significantly reduced. As for the "retail uses", I'm told these will include a paint ball emporium and a Halal butcher.

But former RCMP officer and Toronto-based corporate crime consultant Chris] Mathers questioned whether public money should be spent to investigate an alleged fraud that he said the bank should have avoided by properly vetting mortgage applications. He blamed the banks for creating a climate in which mortgage fraud thrives.

"The banks are fighting tooth and nail with each other to get this kind of mortgage business," he said. "They are cutting corners and so because they cut corners, they become victims of fraud."

Sunday, May 09, 2010

The problem for Shory is that it has now been revealed that he did in fact get served a Statement of Claim back in the summer of 2008, before he became and MP.

Senior Conservatives in Calgary are said to be upset because they did not know this at the time and it looks like he did not come clean and tell them during the vetting process.

...confirmed, but BMO has stated pretty clearly that Devinder Shory did know that he was named in the lawsuit back in September 2008. And that's how you would learn of such a thing, isn't it?...by being served with a statement of claim? But if so, that would make this statement...

Its worth noting that Shory's 2008 nomination run for the Calgary Northeast was quite bitterly contested, with accusations of impropriety on all sides. If word of the BMO suit had got out at the time, who knows what might have happened?

PS. It occurs to me that Shory's statement above is untrue whether or not he was served, as long as he learned of the suit last year and not through "media stories", which BMO indicates he did.

When Taylor blogs something you know its been fed to him from CPoC Central. Given that the date on the post is April 22nd, Mr. Lee and Co. should have seen this coming. I mean...and I know its easy for me to say...but he had two weeks to have the insufficiently clear material removed from the website. He didn't, and a promising line of attack re shady Tory lobbying practices is temporarily blunted. Bad Mr. Lee! BAD!

Thursday, May 06, 2010

This is good populist politics. This a load of crap, of the same kind that's been slung alot the past couple of days. Normal people like the GG, would love to see her term extended, and would therefore have no trouble with Iggy making that suggestion. If Harper is so eager to see her gone, then let him explain why. Iggy's made more than a few mistakes lately, but the reaction to this has been so over-the-top that I'm inclined to think Canadian pundits, led in this case by Andrew Coyne and his frothing at the mouth on Sunday, havegone a bit mad.

Some inconsiderate hominid, some stinky monkey with enough filthy lucre to purchase--but not enough patience, intelligence, and yes manliness to understand the noble reptile that had fallen into their care--has dumped a pet crocodilian into a large pond near Barangas On The Beach outside of Hamilton, Ontario. Probably not long ago, either, since a creature that size (1 to 2 meters) could not survive even a mild Ontario winter and the weather's only recently warmed-up enough to enable a successful release.

In any case, the Hamidile is likely to be a representative of one of the species noted in this quote from the croc site.

If you look at the picture--while its hard for a non-expert like me to guess the species--the strongly contrasting light and dark marks on the jaw suggest a juvenile.

(Although, given the probable length, even though its sub-adult it would still be big enough to eat your chihuahua if your chihuahua strayed too close to the pond's edge. But then...think about it...you could buy a real dog.)

In any case, good luck to Bry Loyst, of the Indian River Reptile Zoo, who is trying to rescue this glorious and yet misunderstood creature.

And, just as an aside, while I've never eaten gator meat, I've supped on Alligator once or twice. Tastes like chicken, as most everything does when you really think about it. Not that this has relevance to the situation with our poor Hamidile. Yet. But what if no zoo will take him?

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

I suspect the Senator's colorful intervention yesterday really was intended as friendly advice rather than a threat, and the evolution of Liberal Status of Women Critic Anita Neville's response to this advice, from understanding to condemnation, tracks the LPoC's realization that they had come upon a politically exploitable moment. But whatever.

Senator Nancy Ruth (ON) has never in her life shied away from a fight. When women stormed the barricades in 1981 to insist on including gender equality in the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for example, she was right there. Ever since then, she's dedicated herself to supporting women, and even maintains a website called Section15.ca which helps keep the Charter success alive. Now, thirty years later, she's reduced to advocating silence for fear of escalating backlash against women's rights.I've been hearing countless anecdotes of how this government is systematically quelling any activity that does not support its own point of view. Groups have been told to remove any reference to gender equality in their application for funding, for instance, and all advocacy funding has been eliminated. But so far, no collective and sustained public protest has emerged. In fact, it would seem to me that many non-governmental organizations have been following the senator's advice for several years now. Oddly enough, Senator Nancy Ruth's impassioned plea to keep quiet may have the reverse effect. A member of yesterday's audience told me that one panelist responded to her by saying their silence over the past few years has only served to make matters worse. Could it be that this very public event will galvanize them into organizing a collective response? Let's hope so. At the very least, it gives us one more testimonial to the insidious way in which the Harper government is doing its level best to change the DNA of our nation.

As to Ruth's suggestion that Harper might make abortion an election issue, I doubt it. The whole point behind the Liberals' poking and prodding the government over this for the past couple of months has been to encourage just such an outcome. The result has been that the Tories rapidly distanced themselves from Rod Bruinooge's no-hope private member's bill, and their endless squirming over whether to include contraception and/or abortion in the G8 Maternal Health initiative. And the end-game of all this squirming (I suspect) will likely be that abortion is included in the final plan, but (as I've explained here) some means will be found by which the Canadian government's financial contribution to that portion of the plan can be disguised.

In any case, they've been playing defense on this issue for weeks now. It's definitely not something they'd want to campaign on.